Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has fallen in love with Riot Games’ Valorant. He’s been grinding the new tactical FPS full-time on his stream, and believes it has a bright future past its explosive launch.
Fortnite. Overwatch. Apex Legends. Valorant. FPS as a genre has seen a huge resurgence in the past five years. While the market once upon a time was all CSGO, Halo, and Call of Duty, numerous titles have risen in recent years.
No matter your taste of shooter, there’s bound to be a competitive game out there for you. This bodes well for newer releases like Valorant, according to Shroud, who says despite the stiff competition, these title are here to stay.
Shroud was answering viewers’ questions on stream when the topic of FPS games came up. Even with the market getting saturated with more titles, Shroud believes that the scene is healthy.
Games that once struggled, like Escape from Tarkov, are now thriving. New titles like Valorant don’t knock others off their mantle, but bring everyone else up. In his eyes, FPS games will never die, but some other genres are on their way out.
“FPS games aren’t even close [to dying],” he said. “The games that are on the end stages of their lives are RTS [real time strategy] games. They don’t have much left, unless they get revitalized through some other genre.”
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He then focused on why this is the case. Shroud himself said that he never gets tired of playing Valorant, and said it’s almost impossible for him to get bored.
“‘Do you start getting bored when you’re playing Valorant?’ Nope, not at all,” he said. “It’s a hard game to get bored of to be honest.”
He also added that the longevity of some FPS titles speaks volumes about how healthy the genre is overall, especially compared to other titles.
“Counter-Strike has lasted two decades. Escape from Tarkov — f**king years and years and years. Valorant’s going to last another ten years probably. Call of Duty, biggest FPS in the world. Halo, Overwatch — FPS is the genre,” he said.
Some might say it’s a bit early to start singing Valorant’s successes. After all, Riot’s first venture in FPS titles is only a month old. However, it’s found ludicrous amounts of success — smashing Twitch records, and players are doing anything for closed beta access.
Given how much shroud has fallen in love with the game, one can only imagine that 10 years down the line, he will still be gearing up to launch himself into Valorant — and there’ll be thousands, maybe even millions, following his lead.
